CFD: Contract For Difference aka Complete Financial Disaster.

In the financial services industry, a contract for difference (CFD) is a contract between two parties, typically described as “buyer” and “seller”, stipulating that the seller will pay to the buyer the difference between the current value of an asset and its value at contract time (if the difference is negative, then the buyer pays instead to the seller). In effect CFDs are financial derivatives that allow traders to take advantage of prices moving up (long positions) or prices moving down (short positions) on underlying financial instruments and are often used to speculate on those markets. For example, when applied to equities, such a contract is an equity derivative that allows traders to speculate on share price movements, without the need for ownership of the underlying shares.

Using a vehicle such as a Panamanian offshore exempt company formed through such as Mossack Fonseca and a Swiss bank account from such as HSBC one can make a huge (tax free) fortune from CFDs. One can just as easily loose one’s shirt! Basically CFD’s are a form of gambling and the advice of His late Majesty, King Edward VII should be followed: “Do not gamble with money you cannot comfortably afford to loose.”

There are however situations when life puts one into a position that Brutus found himself in (Act 4 Scene 3) of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

Such is the decision members of the Conservative Party will shortly find themselves with when they have to decide who to vote for as the party leader and the Queen’s Prime Minister. That choice will be between two candidates. One of these will be Mrs May. The other will likely be Mrs Leadsom.

Neither of these women will be a Captain Kirk – and not for the obvious reason of gender. Star Trek was first broadcast in the USA by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) – an American commercial broadcast television network – between 1966 and 1969. The BBC broadcast the series between Saturday 12th July 1969 and Wednesday 15th December 1971. At the time the series started I was nearly 14 and when it ended I was 16. Captain James T. Kirk was a hero of mine.

Captain Kirk was a quintessential hero for a teenage lad. A courageous leader, who led his crew into the danger of the unknown and succeed time and time again. He was a suave ladies man but was far more than that. He was knowledgeable with a passion for learning that got him out of several awkward spots. Then there was Kirk’s relationships with the Vulcan Spock and the ship’s doctor McCoy. Kirk’s confidence in himself as a leader had him surround himself with men of differing views and not “Yes men” who were afraid to argue with him. “One of the advantages of being a captain, Doctor, is being able to ask for advice without necessarily having to take it.”

Then there was Kirk’s enormous personal courage. Whenever an interesting or challenging mission came up, Kirk was always willing to put himself in harm’s way by joining the Away Team. With his boots on the ground, he was always able to make quick assessments of the situation, leading to superior results. Kirk was very much a hands-on leader, leading the vanguard of his crew as they explored interesting and dangerous situations. Kirk’s attitude to risk was exemplified by his statement, “Risk is our business. That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.”

Then there was Kirk’s preparedness to make a huge gamble, to “bet the farm” as the Americans would say. Remember the episode “The Corbomite Maneuver” ? When Kirk bluffs and tells the attacking alien space ship that the Enterprises hull contains “corbomite” which is a material which when the Enterprise is destroyed destroys any attacker. Just for good measure Kirk dismisses the alien’s concession of time to allow the Enterprise’s crew top make their peace with their creators by saying, “Death means little to us, we grow tired of your childish games….”

Up to press, the British Gazette has suggested that the sensible choice for the Tories is the Remainian Mrs May. It is important however when looking at the leadership candidates to look at their advisers and supporters as well.

There is no doubt that Mrs May is a safe and experienced pair of hands, albeit, judging from Ken Clarke’s unwitting admission, difficult to work with. Below:Mrs May it appears will likely travel the path of EFTA/EEA keeping the UK in the Single Market. This is precisely the course mapped out in Flexcit that Doctor Richard North and this organ have been advocating. The danger that Mrs May presents is two fold; that the Europhiles in the Tory party and their advisers will urge a compromised Flexcit which will appear to have advantages that “the Norway Option” does not but these “advantages” will be Trojan horses.

For we Eurorealists, Flexcit has always been a stage on a journey, not the final destination.

The Europhiles are aware of Mrs May’s predicament that the Leave campaign offered the end of free movement. For instance, the Europhile Robert Schuman Foundation are putting forward proposals to modify the EEA to change Part VII of the EEA Agreement, addressing “the inability of the EEA States” (they mean Efta states) to take part in the vote over the internal market rules. They suggest that instead of the Council of the European Union (formerly the Council of Ministers) taking the dominant role, the EEA Council would be the body charged with approving Single Market legislation, thereby giving Efta members some “say” in how the rules were made.

These decision-making powers might also be extended to the Union’s programmes in which the Efta states had chosen to participate, such as the research framework.

Similarly, the Foundation argues, it might be possible for the mixed EEA parliamentary committee to be transformed to include all Union parliamentarians and “European Members of Parliament” appointed by the non-EU EEA States. These EMPs would meet in Brussels and be able to take part in co-decision in the same way as the EEA Council. As to freedom of movement, the Foundation acknowledges the existence of the Liechtenstein provisions.

Robert Schuman Foundation are clearly trying to reinvent EFTA+EEA as the EU Mk 2.
This is precisely the danger we alluded to near the end of our article (http://www.british-gazette.co.uk/2016/07/02/farage-rogers-correspondence/).
This undoubtedly is the SAFE option insofar as the economy is concerned. This is the option which will be desired by the City of London – second-class membership in an enhanced EEA – a “second-class citizen” in a Große Europa whose appetite for the creation of a United States of Europe would be entirely undiminished.

And the apparent alternative? Having a lady as Prime Minister who has little understanding of what it takes to negotiate a successful withdrawal from the EU, and no capacity to develop that understanding and the potential chaos (unless stopped by the nation’s many creditors beforehand) of a world outside the Single Market with no coherent replacement.

The answer is the idea set out in the latest seventh version of Flexcit – a third phase offering the opportunity of creating a genuine Europe-wide single market, freed from the grip of Brussels.
The Editor is NOT a member of the Conservative Party and therefore does not have a vote. If I was and had I would vote for James Tiberious Kirk!
“Enterprise…….. Come in…….. Enterprise…….. Come in……….”